Islamabad (ANTARA News) - Pakistan has allowed American diplomatic shipment across into Afghanistan for the first time since Islamabad had closed the NATO supply line last November over a NATO airstrike on border posts, which killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, the U.S. embassy said Friday.

A U.S. embassy spokesman said that the diplomatic shipment had been stuck for nearly six months.

He also clarified that the American shipment has nothing to do with the NATO supplies.

Sources and local media reported that Pakistan had also banned American supplies to Afghanistan via its land route as protest against the November deadly strike.

TV channels reported that Pakistani authorities released the American embassy`s computers and other equipment which had been stuck at Karachi port.

"The U.S. diplomatic shipment crossed into Afghanistan via Torkham border point in Pakistan`s northwest," local media reported.


The U.S. consulate in Peshawar, the capital of northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, also confirmed crossing of the shipment into Afghanistan.

Analysts said that permission to allow U.S. diplomatic shipment via Pakistan`s land route is the first step to restore the NATO supply line in the coming days.

Pakistani prime minister and senior U.S. official said that talks are going-on on the reopening of the NATO supply line and Americans have also noted progress in the talks.

President Asif Ali Zardari Friday left for the United States to attend NATO summit in Chicago on May 20-21.

Sources said Pakistan was invited to the NATO summit after Islamabad conveyed to the U.S. its decision to restore NATO supply line.

Xinhua

Editor: Jafar M Sidik
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